Canadian Judge Who Wore Trump Hat in Court Will Remain on the Bench

OTTAWA — A Canadian judge who wore a “Make America Great Again” cap into court the morning after Donald J. Trump’s election victory last year was suspended without pay and reprimanded by a disciplinary body on Tuesday.

Disciplinary hearings against judges in Canada are rare. The decision about the conduct of the judge, Justice Bernd Zabel of the Ontario Court of Justice, was the first issued by the Ontario Judicial Council since 2014.

The four-member council, which included a lay person and a lawyer, rejected Justice Zabel’s explanation that the campaign hat and comments he made about Mr. Trump in court were just jokes about an unexpected election result. But it also decided that removing him from the bench would be excessive, given his track record and the fact that he had apologized.

“What would a reasonable member of the public think upon seeing Justice Zabel enter the courtroom wearing Trump’s signature red ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ hat and state that he did so ‘in celebration of an historic event?’ ” the review body wrote. “In our view, and indeed as Justice Zabel himself now acknowledges, a reasonable member of the public would think that Justice Zabel was making a political statement and endorsing Donald Trump’s campaign.”

Justice Zabel had already been suspended by the court since late last year, but with pay. Under the council’s ruling, the justice will now be suspended for an additional 30 days, without pay. The next most severe sanction would have been to remove him from the bench.

Judges in Canada are not elected. Appointments to Justice Zabel’s court are made by a nonpartisan, 13-member committee. Judges are not allowed to donate to political parties or participate in any political activities.

During its hearings, the council heard that when Justice Zabel was heading into court in Hamilton, Ontario, while wearing his cap, another judge asked him, “Are you out of your mind?”

Once on the bench, according to court transcripts, he said his cap was “in celebration of a historic night in the United States. Unprecedented.”

Justice Zabel left his hat in his chambers during the afternoon session. But when it ended, the court papers said, he said to a prosecutor that the hat’s “brief appearance” was meant to annoy the rest of the judges because he thought they were Clinton supporters. “I was the only Trump supporter up there, but that’s O.K.,” he said.

The council said many Canadians found Mr. Trump’s views “on women, racialized minorities, and other vulnerable groups to be highly offensive” and believed that his policies were “contrary to Canada’s interests and contrary to basic Canadian values.”

It added, “For a judge to appear to endorse Trump’s views would be perceived by the public to be an expression of opinion on issues of profound importance to Canadians.”

The council received 81 complaints about Justice Zabel, including one signed by 27 faculty members of the law school at the University of Windsor in Ontario, which the justice had attended.

Kim Stanton, the legal director of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, one of the complainants, said, “a reprimand and suspension is an appropriate acknowledgment that Justice Zabel’s action had an adverse impact upon public confidence in the judiciary. “

Justice Zabel’s lawyer, Giulia B. Gambacorta, said her client was “anxious to get back to work.”

Follow Ian Austen on Twitter: @ianrausten

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Hat Costs a Canadian Judge Some Pay, but Not His Job. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe